Multi Billion Dollar On-demand Economy: Scope for New Uber for X Startups to Take a Share in this Market

Technology does not do anything new! It makes things happen in an efficient way and minimizes the possibilities of chaos. This was the case with the service industry. On one side, the service providers we are eagerly waiting for customers to get in touch with them. Sometimes, someone who needs their service could be just a couple of streets away but those customers had no way to connect with the service providers.

It seems that this commercial cat and mouse game would continue between customers and service providers… Until the on-demand revolution set in.

What is the on-demand revolution?

Market pundits would agree that the success and the profitability of service depend on how available there at the time of need and in a place of need. A lot of services, however, have been struggling to find out answers to these questions worth more than a million dollars. There have been mechanisms like phone calls and online forms but they were long, arduous, and cumbersome processes that involved multiple communications to ensure that the service provider arrived at a place where is the service was needed.

It all changed with one application – Uber! Uber, as many perceive, is not a cab services company. It is a technology company that mastered the art and the science of bridging demand and supply by using technology as a platform. To be specific, they used the combination of mobile phones that acts as an identifier for the user and the GPS, the mapping, and the navigation mechanisms that can direct service providers to the accurate location of the user.

This meant that Uber solved the problem of finding out who were the customers, where were they, and when they needed it! This revolution by Uber spread to almost every other service industry including but not limited to food ordering, medical services, beauty services, pet care, house cleaning, laundry, maintenance, fitness, logistics, and of course, cabs and transportation.

A simple download an application and create a profile by using login credentials gives options for customers to request a service that they want at a time when they need it. On the other side, it also helps businesses identify customers who are proactively on the lookout for services they provide.

In short, the services are available for customers when they demanded, giving rise to the expression ‘on-demand.’

The promising statistics

The Harvard business report states that the on-demand economy attracts more than 22 million customers every year and more than $57 billion in spending. 49% of these consumers are Millennials and 30% of these consumers are between the ages of 35 and 54. This only means that the growth will continue and it is quite likely that the new wave of users will have a greater occurrence of adoption.

It is seen that 45% of these users have a degree for an educational qualification higher than that and 68% of these users have an annual income of more than $50,000. More than 50% of these users are suburban residence and 18% of them reside in core urban areas. Considering population distribution, it is evident that the death of app usage leans towards the urban areas.

On-demand transportation has been leading the revolution not just in timeline but also in numbers. That is probably why any on-demand app is called an Uber for X, X being the industry or service variable. The Uber revolution has spread so far and wide that it has its butterfly effect manifestation in Indonesia – GoJek. GoJek clone apps are a craze in Southeast Asian nations including Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore. Using these ready-made app solution, app like Gojek can be built.

On the mend, businesses have been investment magnets as well. The investment rounds focused on funding on-demand businesses started in 2014. It went right from a meagre $74 billion in 2014 to $10.2 trillion in the last quarter of 2017. The total value of the condiment market in 2025 is expected to stand at a staggering $335 billion.

Industries most likely to be impacted

Almost every industry is quite likely to be positively impacted by the on-demand revolution. We have seen the transformation in a few sectors like transportation, food delivery and grocery period in addition to this, there are quite a lot of industries that await disruption.

A few of them include beauty salons, medical services, and doctor on-demand, pet care, logistics, handyman and domestic services, fitness services, and coaching and tutoring services. Even within the realm of on-demand services, there is quite a lot of diversity possible, breaking the monotony. It can be either enterprise to enterprise, enterprise to person, or person to person – the concepts that we commonly know as B2C, B2B, and C2C. 

A few success stories

The success of a few brands has already served as a demonstrator for the possibility of profit that you can find in the on-demand market. Uber proved it in the transportation of the transportation domain. Task Rabbit established the need and market for handyman services and household services. Without even realizing, Netflix has shown that uses prefer to watch what they want rather than what is imposed upon them to see. This has proved the success of on-demand video content.

Even for the most unexpected territories, on-demand services have found their success. Rinse showed us how the on-demand laundry service market can prove profitable. Leave alone the services, tinder proved that even dating is a lucrative territory for this on-demand revolution.

Conclusion

It is quite evident that the future will be all about on-demand. Businesses do not have an option but to adapt to this change in technology. This also opens up avenues for aspiring entrepreneurs to create their own on-demand business.

Most of the on-demand services are bound to operate on a single skeleton. All that it requires is the user profile, access to the user’s location, and the choice of service providers they can choose from. Given this parameter, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of white label clones of Uber and GoJek. The GoJek clone app is extremely customizable. This also means that you will save a lot of time and money, and the app will not have any glitches with respect to its basic functionalities.

If you’re one of those who would like to search for this wave of profitability, this is the right time for you to start your on-demand business!